In Jewelry, Tales of Love

Five people talk about pieces with special meaning, like a pendant carried at Auschwitz, a ring celebrating a new baby and a grandmother’s jadeite disc.

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Derek Klein, left, wearing the emerald ring that he says has helped him through illness as well as business challenges.CreditCreditDaniel Dorsa for The New York Times

Nov. 30, 2018

Lily Ebert

When Lily Ebert was around 4 years old, her mother gave her a tiny gold pendant of an angel. When she was 14, her elder brother hid it, along with a couple of pieces of their mother’s jewelry, inside the heel of their mother’s shoe. The pendant still has a tiny dent from where it was hit by one of the nails.

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Lily Ebert at home in North London. She was wearing the pendant that, at Auschwitz, she hid inside a shoe and then, when the heel wore away, inside her daily piece of bread. She called the jewelry her last link to her mother.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

It was late 1944, and Germany had invaded her native Hungary that March. As Jews, they were being forced to give up any items of value. “The aim really was to kill us all,” said Ms. Ebert, now 89, during an interview at her North London apartment.

They initially were forced to live in the Jewish ghetto in their hometown, Bonyhad, in the southwestern part of the country. Then Ms. Ebert, her mother and four of her siblings — her elder brother already had been taken as a slave laborer — were crammed into a dark, airless cattle truck with 70 or 80 others. The doors shut at the beginning of what was to be a five-day trip. “Quite a few people, the lucky ones, died on the way,” Ms. Ebert said.

The small man waiting as they came off the train was Dr. Josef Mengele, and the place was Auschwitz-Birkenau. “With one movement, he sent people to the right or left,” she said. Her mother, youngest sister and younger brother were sent left, straight to what the survivors later found out was the gas chamber. She and her remaining two sisters were sent to the right.

To Ms. Ebert, her endurance at Auschwitz, at the slave labor camp where she was later sent — and, as American forces approached, of the evacuation that became a death march — were tied inextricably to the pendant and her mother’s jewelry.

Just before they reached Auschwitz, her mother suggested that they swap shoes. They were the only personal items Ms. Ebert was allowed to keep after being stripped and forced to shower: The camp’s supply of wooden shoes had run out. Then, when the heel wore away, Ms. Ebert hid her pendant, her mother’s rings and earrings inside her daily piece of bread. If she had been caught, she would have been killed immediately. But she took the risk, she said, because the jewelry was her last connection to her mother.

It was also a small act of defiance against the Nazis, who had taken everything else. “They would say to us the only way out of here is through the chimney,” she said.

After the war, Ms. Eberts gave her mother’s rings to her sisters and, later, the earrings to a granddaughter. She continues to wear the pendant to this day.

“Not only I survived,” she said, “but my jewelry that you didn’t want me to keep, survived with me.” RACHEL GARRAHAN

Derek Klein

Like many travelers to Jaipur, the city in northern India known for its gems, Derek Klein was eager to buy a piece of keepsake jewelry during his first visit, in 2007.

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Derek Klein. The emerald ring he had made in India was on his right pinkie.CreditDaniel Dorsa for The New York Times

But when he bought a deeply pigmented oval emerald and had it mounted on a simple hammered gold band, he had no idea that the ring would become something of a talisman through founding successful businesses with friends and surviving a bout with testicular cancer.

As he put it, “It’s all happening because of this magic ring.”

Mr. Klein’s trip was something of a whim, mostly inspired by a friend’s reminiscences of trips to cities like the Hindu spiritual site of Varanasi, described over Indian dinners at small restaurants in Los Angeles, where he was living at the time. Then 25 years old, he dropped out of college, where he had been studying architecture, and headed to the country for a several-month-long trip; Jaipur was his first stop. “I was totally rebelling,” he admitted.

The vivid style of its residents, particularly the men, got him thinking about having a piece of jewelry made. “I wanted something that represented this moment in my life,” he said. “When you’re in that environment, you get inspired.”

So Mr. Klein started doodling ring designs in his journal. (One plan, as he was pondering possible careers, was to start a jewelry line.) “I wanted a cabochon-cut stone and 23-karat gold that looked and felt ancient,” he said. “I wanted an emerald. It’s such a very significant stone; it’s a protector.”

“I wanted it on this finger,” he continued, holding up his right pinkie. He later discovered that wearing a ring on one’s little finger is considered by some Indians to be auspicious. “Pieces like this are objects of power,” he said. “They mean something.”

He found a stone he liked in a gem market, charmed more by its intense color than its grade, and then, through word of mouth, a jewelry factory to craft the ring. The entire price was around $800 and it took about a week to make, he recalled.

While he was waiting for it to be completed, he met a woman who is still a friend, Angela Poesl; she eventually took him to Tulum, on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, where he co-founded a boutique hotel, Casa Pueblo Tulum, and is opening another property next year. Mr. Klein also founded a popular Tulum restaurant, with which he’s no longer involved. The trip to India “was an incredible experience because it set the path for my life,” he said.

These days, Mr. Klein, 36, divides his time between Manhattan and Tulum, and the ring frequently comes up in conversation. “I’ve had people ask if they can buy it,” he said. “I’ve had people ask if I can make them one, but I’m not a jewelry maker so I don’t feel comfortable charging someone.”

One friend, Hampton Carney, who recently became the publicist for Mr. Klein’s hotels, was inspired to get a similar ring made on his 2013 vacation to India. “His stone is better quality,” Mr. Klein said with a smile. RACHEL FELDER

Jin-hee Cho

On March 14, 100 days after the birth of her daughter, Jooa, Jin-hee Cho’s mother gave her a diamond ring.

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Jin-hee Cho. She was wearing the diamond ring that her mother gave her 100 days after the birth of her daughter.CreditTim Franco for The New York Times

In Korean culture, some milestones are particularly significant: the first birthday (dol), the 60th (hwangap) and also the 100th day of life, or baek-il. “In the olden days in Korea, infants often passed away because of illness or poor living conditions, so 100 days is celebrated for having survived this fragile period,” said Ms. Cho, 36.

For her daughter’s baek-il festivities, Ms. Cho invited a few family members to the house, and the refreshments included three types of rice cakes (for purity, protection and wisdom) and seasonal fruit. She dressed the baby in a mini-hanbok, the traditional formal wear for Koreans and a hat.

The ring, however, was the way her mother, Young-ja Song, chose to blend Korean bridal and childbirth traditions.

“When she got married, my mother received two sets of diamond earrings from her mother-in-law, as part of the Korean bridal tradition called yemul,” or gift exchanges between families, Ms. Cho said. “My mom used two of the original diamonds that came in the earrings set from her wedding, and added three new ones.

“A friend who works in the jewelry industry helped her find diamonds that closely resembled the vintage ones,” she added, “and they reset all five on an 18-karat white gold band.” The baby’s name is engraved inside, along with her birth date and a heart motif.

“I wear the ring every day,” Ms. Cho said, and she plans to give it to Jooa when her daughter has her own child. “When my mother was raising me,” she said, “she told me that I would have to take care of my own baby when I would become a mother myself, as she worked hard to raise me most of her life and she wanted time for herself. But that completely changed as she is now taking care of my daughter while I go to work every weekday.

“She told me she realized the meaning of eternal love. Now I’m thinking I’ll do the same for my daughter.” VIVIAN MORELLI

Chahan Minassian

Chahan Minassian says he believes that jewelry has a soul. Given that he comes from four generations of jewelers and watchmakers (and he thinks it may be more), that seems only fitting.

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Chahan Minassian, wearing his diamond ring.CreditJulien Mignot for The New York Times

“My sense of detail comes from that heritage,” Mr. Minassian said. “I have an innate sense of precision that I apply to anything.”

Including his favorite piece of jewelry, which he has worn constantly since it emerged from his cousin’s workshop four years ago: an 8-carat emerald-cut diamond pinkie ring with a suspended double-frame setting. Its spare lines and understated intricacy appeal to Mr. Minassian, who calls it “my day wear.”

Mr. Minassian’s design world is multi-hyphenate. A sought-after interior decorator, furniture designer and curator, he does private homes, yachts and planes for clients from Paris to Tokyo. He was part of the creative team that redesigned the Hôtel de Crillon (notably the bar area). His one-of-a-kind decorative objects include the gemlike rock crystal lanterns and panel screens in his Left Bank gallery (come January, that small space will expand to include a store next door). And next spring, Mr. Minassian plans to open what he calls a multifaceted “design embassy” in a residential palazzo in Venice.

Mr. Minassian says a jewelry mind-set guides everything he does, large and small.

“For me the jewel is what you put inside,” he said. “It has to have inner warmth. The diamond may be beautiful, but if the écrin — the ‘box’ — is ill fitting, it won’t be right. The same goes for everything from watches to interior design.”

Of Mr. Minassian’s jewelry designs, the most famous is probably the diamond pavé four-leaf clover he made for himself and then lent to Sarah Jessica Parker for the movie “Sex and the City 2.”

He found his diamond, which originally had been mounted in a ladies’ cocktail ring, among hundreds in a drawer at the jewelry studio owned by his cousin Vram Minassian in Los Angeles. Mr. Minassian recalls zeroing in on it: “Among all of them, I knew. Its tint, color, scale — that was my stone,” he said. He reset it in a matte white gold faceted like the diamond’s shape. “The stone was so pure it didn’t need anything else,” he said. “Things can be opulent without feeling rigged.”

Later, when he came across an 11-band gold ring by the Swiss sculptor Andreas Caderas at the De Vera gallery in New York, he decided to pair them.

To those who note the diamond’s size, he points out that he has big hands: “It’s about proportion, a sense of measure. Wearing a ladies’ ring would look dinky. That’s not my style. My style is always classic so it had to be masculine and discreet.”

And while women invariably respond to the piece, Mr. Minassian said that men’s reactions were even more telling.

“Men will say, ‘I never imagined wearing a diamond ring before,’ and I tell them, ‘Me, neither.’ But a beautiful piece becomes a part of you.” TINA ISAAC-GOIZÉ

Sarah Ho

Sarah Ho, a granddaughter of the Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho, is a jewelry designer based in London. One of her most treasured pieces of jewelry is a jadeite pendant that belonged to her grandmother, Clementina Leitão Ho, who died in 2004.

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Sarah Ho, a jewelry designer, with her grandmother's jadeite pendant.CreditAndrew Urwin for The New York Times

The pendant features a jadeite disc, translucent but with a saturated, rich green color. It is framed by pavé diamonds in an octagonal shape similar to the fung shui talisman, the bat gua. It is a typical shape in Chinese jewelry design and is believed to bring good luck.

“The pendant was gifted to me in 2006,” said Ms. Ho, 40. “It belonged to my late grandmother but was given to me by my aunt, Angela Ho, as a wedding gift. She wanted me to have something that not only my grandmother loved but also had worn often.” Ms. Leitão Ho raised Ms. Ho after her parents, Robert Ho and Suki Potier, died in a car accident in 1981.

Ms. Leitão Ho, Mr. Ho’s first wife, came from a prominent Portuguese family in Macau and was known as a great beauty with exceptional style. “My grandmother was probably one of the most fashionable women in Macau,” Ms. Ho said. “She had an amazing collection of jewelry which she wore every day. Depending on her outfit, she would match it with mesmerizing gems — definitely a trendsetter in her time.”

Ms. Ho said the pendant changed her own design sense. When it was given to her, she said, “I was working mainly with diamonds and my aunt thought the jade would be a great inspirational piece for me. Green was my grandmother’s favorite color.”

Now, as a designer with a shop on Duke Street in Mayfair, “My mother and grandmother are my muses but their tastes varied,” she said. “My mother grew up in London in the Swinging ’60s and ’70s, in a world of changing fashion and trends. Her choice was much bolder.”

The women also have helped to shape Ms. Ho’s thoughts about her business. “As a jewelry designer, I understand that for collectors it has to have a lasting investment value,” she said. “But there has to also be a sentimental worth.” DESIREE AU